The Path of Light
Bangkok, Thailand: Siva Phorn Limited Partnership, [1956]. First edition. 8vo. 243pp. Gilt stamped gray boards, yellow silk bookmark, pages toned, gift inscription on the title page, very good. In yellow dust jacket with significant fading, errata page laid in, very good.
A distinctly mid-century Thai treatment of Buddhism and spiritual development by Yong Hoontrakool, who was part of a broader movement seeking to reconcile Buddhist thought with modern science; his 1954 essay Buddha Dharma and Science is cited in recent scholarship on the development of Thai “scientific Buddhism.” The Path of Light similarly approaches meditation, karma, reincarnation, and higher consciousness in an accessible, modern framework.
This copy with a particularly interesting association, inscribed in 1967 by Sudhanan Hoontrakool, a Thai mechanical engineer, to W. Grant Ireson, the influential Stanford professor of industrial engineering whose work in engineering education and international development took him throughout Asia. Sudhanan’s relationship to Yong Hoontrakool remains unclear, but the presentation of Yong’s work by one engineer to another makes for a suggestive association with the book’s attempt to bridge Eastern spirituality and modern scientific thought.
. Item #10286Price: $200.00